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「平家星の笑った日」 (Heikeboshi no Waratta Hi)
“The Day Betelgeuse Laughed”
And so the faucet of information is loosened yet again. While I imagine some are growing impatient with the speed at which Re: Zero has decided to drop Emilia’s past, one has to admit the results are fun to watch in action. Three weeks of thirty-minute episodes with no OP and ED? Now that’s anime time usage to die for.
Although still unclear why Emilia and her band of merry ice flinging elves was targeted, we’re certainly starting to fill in the gaps. The appearance of Pandora, the Witch of Vanity (the only one Subaru hasn’t actually met mind you) alongside Regulus is enough to show something critical lies at the heart of this situation, and the fact Pandora is demanding the seal itself is enough indication that whatever it is won’t end well for all involved. Well, unless you’re an ardent member of the Witch’s Cult already, but I think we know now how far loyalty gets you among this merry band of freaks. At least we do have a pretty good idea of what makes Betelgeuse tick now, as the love he became known for was centered on Fortuna and enhanced by the Sloth factor selflessly used for her benefit. Not sure it immediately explains his descent into madness, but never fear, I think that bit is coming up next.
As for the other biggie this week in Echidna, Ryuzu, and Beatrice, less revealed than more confirmed. Beatrice’s spirit status and contract with Echidna is already known from last season for example, but Beatrice being involved apparently right from the start alongside a less clownish Roswaal? That’s certainly a tasty tidbit hinting towards fun down the line. While this discussion seems out of place given the immense focus on Emilia right now, it’s a good prelude to what comes once Emilia beats the trial given securing passage out of Sanctuary does nothing to actually deal with the threat to the Mansion and Beatrice. Subaru still needs to figure out a way to properly clear this latest checkpoint after all, and Ryuzu is likely the means to do that.
Whether or not it’s enough to avoid another death is anyone’s guess, but hey, it wouldn’t be Re: Zero without some uncertainty.
Kirito and Asuna
Pandora made one of the best “Denied!” against Regulus I have seen. That was certainly interesting. ^^
Never underestimate the moeblob 😛
When you thought having 100 unseen hands or accelerator’s deflector field was OP, suddenly “Miss Didn’t happen” appears
Regulus mentioned that Petelgeuse is a spirit, so I guess that’s how Petelgeuse has survived this long and even knew Beatrice. Given Beatrice has been stuck in a library for 400 years, Petelgeuse and Beatrice probably met around that time or maybe even before that.
Regulus didn’t seem too happy about Petelgeuse taking in the Sloth Witch Factor. I wonder if it has anything to do with Petelgeuse actually being diligent rather than slothful whereas Regulus is super greedy in that he dominates speaking time and has multiple wives, which would indicate he has an actual harem. Subaru really isn’t slothful either, and after Subaru used his Invisible Providence, he coughed a lot of saliva out and felt awful. Maybe how your personality matches up with the Witch Factor you have influences whether you’re a good fit for it. Petelgeuse was straight up bleeding after all from using the Unseen Hand, and he works very hard, which might be the reason it took such a heavy toll on him.
Pandora’s power seems to straight up be the power to rewrite reality given that she undid her deaths and rewrote reality so that Regulus never even appeared, which erased the damage inflicted on Petelgeuse by him. Given that she didn’t overwrite Petelgeuse taking in the Sloth Witch Factor, I would describe her power as the selective rewriting of reality given she doesn’t have to undo everything that happened, only erasing any physical damage Regulus dealt in this situation. I wonder what the limits of her powers are given that she needed to speak to make it so that Regulus never came to Elior Forest in the first place, and she needed to describe a specific situation with knowledge of Regulus’s personal life to send him back home.
I also caught a line from Fortuna that was off.
Fortuna said Al Fula, which is a wind-magic spell, but considering that she sent a huge ice projectile, it should have been Al Huma, a water-magic spell. I think it’s pretty clear beyond any reasonable doubt that this is a mistake regardless of where in production the mistake came from.
Funnily enough you’re on the money regarding Pandora, however there’s more to her power than what we saw here. Like the rest of the witches there’s a particular catch limiting just what she can do.
I guess we need to accept the reality that this loop won’t be resolved this season. The biggest reason I was unhappy with the pacing is for that reason, we will have to wait for season 3…and who knows when that will happen.
This season is a mixed bag I’d say. While we’ve learned a lot, and we’ve gotten so much character development…I’m finding that there’s still so much we don’t know…And it seems like we’re so far away from progressing the story. I don’t fault the anime with that so much as it seems the story just left no room trimming the fat.
Why do you think the loop won’t be resolved this season? I think Subaru and co. are clearly working towards resolving everything in this loop. After all the trial flashbacks, I expect for there to be a lot of progress, eventually leading to the Sanctuary being liberated and Elsa and Meili being defeated.
The way the pacing is now? There’s 6 episodes left. Emila is not even on the first trial yet. She’s in the Pre-trial. Echina was asking her if she wanted to try the trial again and she said “not yet.” So this flashback doesn’t even count as the first trial.
Meanwhile Subaru has to defeat Elsa, the Ma-Beast Child, The Great Rabbit, he has to save the girls at the mansion, and Rem and get Beatrice to break her contract…or whatever it is to resolve that.
Unless they really hit fast forward, there’s no way they can get through all that before the season’s over.
There’s so much left to do that the audience will get whiplash if it all wraps up that fast.
I also assumed that Echinda was going to be the final boss of this arc…I have no idea how this will end. I figured she was going to be the worst to deal with and throw a wench into everything.
I don’t think Subaru’s going to die again this time, but it’ll feel real anti-climactic if they just win. I’m expecting some kind of twist cause this can’t just all go smoothly, It’s Re:Zero after all.
Agreed with Vance, I don’t see this loop and Sanctuary dragging out into another season. Emilia’s past will be wrapped up next week for example, leaving six episodes to deal with Beatrice and the mansion. Even with the current pacing that’s plenty of time to finish this arc.
I guess, but in Re:Zero’s standards, that going to be a new record.
The first half of this season was an info dump. I mentioned before they set up like 9 things to resolve and he resolved dealing with Garfield in episode 16 out of 24.
It took him that long to do ONE of the things and there’s 8 left.
If it’s all wrapped up then that’s fine, but man this season is unbalanced. I haven’t read ahead, I have no idea how they’re going to deal with all of the villains this arc has presented.
To be fair a lot of what happened up until now has been buildup, with that out the way getting through the action won’t take nearly as long. Likewise I highly suspect the remaining trials for Emilia will be dealt with simultaneously alongside Beatrice and the mansion to avoid the drag which undeniably affected some of these episodes.
It’s really unfortunate we had the season delay because if this season had aired right after the first a lot of the issues probably wouldn’t be as prominent IMO.
Don’t get me wrong, I like this show and I don’t want to be critical of it, but I’m going to be fair and say if another show did this where it was 12 episodes of set up I would say “Ok the first half is over and now we can start progressing.” Well, the buildup was still not over. We’re still “building up” things. It was like until episode 15 that things finally started being resolved and what other show could do this? What other show could do set up for this long and be a 24 episode season? Most shows are 12 episodes. If this were 12? There’s no way this would fly.
I had this issue with Harry Potter where the last movie was focused on destroying the Hocruxes and in Part 1 of the movie they destroyed one, and in part 2 they destroyed FOUR. It just wasn’t necessary and it went on too long and it felt like we have to buy time for a movie to happen.
I felt that way when the Great Rabbit showed up. I was like “Really? Things are already impossible and now you’re giving us another impossible villain?”
This season is incredibly unbalanced. Most shows give build up, and development, and progress all at the same time, but this season does nothing but the build up for more than half the season so that’s why it feels like we’re not getting anywhere. I thought the flashbacks were over and we would focus on Emila, but in this very episode, we have a different flashback with Ryuzu. We have a flashback almost in a flashback. You see what I’m saying?
In most youtube comments I see a lot of “They left this out.” There’s apparently a lot of that and it makes me think, my god, how much information do we need? There’s so much information that I don’t think we even asked for or knew was necessary to this show and I’d argue some it isn’t really necessary. I saw something about Sage Candidates and I have no idea what that is. Is it important? I don’t know, but this show is all over the place with its information. It gives me a headace and I can’t remember all this. I rewatched an old episode and Betelguese said something about “The Day of Ordeals” and it had been so long I totally forgot about that. Is that important too? No idea.
From someone who hasn’t read the light novel or manga, Ryuzu seems to exist to eat up screen time. I get that she’s suppose to be there, but every time Subaru has a conversation with her it just drones on and I don’t care about what she has to say.
I’m just saying this season has issues, I think the biggest mistake was that season 1 had 3 loops that were relativity quicker and it gave Subaru only a few things in order to progress…This arc though feels like a filler arc because I thought there was a Royal selection to get to, but it just feels like a side quest. We didn’t know anything about this place and they’ve been stuck here for what feels like a year.
I really don’t like this arc. It’s slow, and sometimes it’s boring, and I don’t get what Liberating the Sanctuary has to do with anything. It will free the villagers I guess? Did it really need to take this long??
Can’t we all appreciate the dedication of White Fox, i mean each episode is lasting almost half an hour, without OP or ED. That’s like 9 minutes extra and i think that’s a commitment we rarely see in the anime industry…
Anime Only but I have asked how long the thing will be and the estimate it will take 9 24 episode seasons this is Arc 4 out of 11. Thus people used to way shorter planed episode levels here and elsewhere clearly not used to something in this length in setting up things. Also readers have stated for every question answer Zero gives you two more.
Thus pacing seams off because your not used to the pacing on a 9 season show that is actually planed in advance. I’m not used to it in anime form but I am in book form.
It’s like the show wanted to make up for the lack of information by massive infodumping. Sometimes it gets really quite hard to keep track of it especially since Betelgeuse has made some form of return to the story and I kind of really forgot about this character other than he being a very insane and mad villain way back, so seeing him in this form is quite jarring. Maybe there were hints of his humanity way back then but I couldn’t remember. Perhaps, maybe this arc would have been more effective if there wasn’t so much as a long hiatus from the first season. But anyway, I have to say, despite the massive infodumping (and the fact that some viewers said even more have been cut), I really like it. Perhaps it could have been better done, but considering the source material, well, this is already good.
Also, I think for this series, not having a default OP and ED is acceptable (Very few series will get a pass for not having these since OP and ED are your standard anime fare). It makes me feel every episode is significant as with the usual anime fare, if an episode skips an OP and ED, something significant and important usually happens. So it’s quite a nice touch here. Well, for narrative (and viewer psychological) reasons.
I’m still excited for all the juicy revelations to come. But I do hope the creators find a way to streamline everything to make it more palatable and less confusing for everyone, old or new viewers alike,
This episode was rather tame to what I had feared. Next episode, it is then.
Pandora, huh? I hadn’t realized that one witch of the one’s mentioned by Echidna hadn’t been introduced yet.
Emilia saying that Fortuna was her mother confused me. Like real mother? Was Emilia a product of more than two people or was she just referring to the family bond due to being raised by her?